How Does He Go On Without Her?
by luverofthings
Summary: My entry into a SoA writing challenge: the challenge: Why is Jax wearing an orange jumpsuit?


**AN: My entry into a SoA fanfiction writing challenge. Yay! I won!**

How was he going to explain to his sons that they would never see their mother again? He couldn't even wrap his own mind around it. Never seeing her again. Never hear her say she loved him. Never hear her call him 'baby' again. Never make love to her again. Never hold her again.

These last few months had been so fucked up between them that he hadn't gotten to do any of those things properly. Like a husband should his wife. And Jesus he loved her so much. Walking into his house, seeing Roosevelt and then his beautiful wife's, Tara, dead bodies on the floor of their kitchen. He hadn't felt that kind of pain ever in his life. Not even when their son had been kidnapped.

He knew that some would argue that he didn't have a soul. Now he would agree with them wholeheartedly. His soul was gone now. It had been ripped out when Tara was murdered in their own home.

Growling deep in his chest, he snapped his head back as hard as he could into the brick wall he leaned against as he sat on the cot in his jail cell. "AHHHHHH!" He screamed out as he snapped his head back again. The pain radiating from the wound only half of what he imagined, or prayed to God his wife had gone through, before some dead mother fucker took her from him.

He could still feel her blood, deep red and thick, on his hands and body. Smell it in his hands and hair. He saw it when he closed his eyes. Even through all the piss, shit and sweat stench that prison constantly had.

He fought the officers as they tried to pull him away from his love. He could barely breathe but he fought them like hell. He hoped he fractured a rib or two, broke a nose or caused them some physical pain. How could they try to take her away from him? Couldn't they see that his entire world had just ended?

Patterson had him taken in for assault on public officials, resisting arrest, failure to comply, possession of fire arms, possession of concealed weapons, and any other trumped up charge she could think of. It was all fucking bullshit. He knew why he was really here. Patterson and other law enforcement officials didn't want more dead bodies piling up. He had been put in a cage, to keep the beast at bay. His new lawyer, his wife's lawyer, assured him that he would be released soon. That he would be able to grieve properly with his sons.

Before that time came he amused himself with picking fights. What better place to beat the absolute shit out of someone who you didn't care about then in jail? He got out some of the rage that had built up in him during the nights. Dreams of her kept came and overwhelmed him. _The dreams of her carrying another child that they created. Her playing tag in the park with their sons. Tara waiting for him during the seven to ten years he would have served in prison for arms dealing. She was older, just as beautiful, but so was he. She was waiting outside Stockton for him, with their sons and daughter, the last gift he gave her before he went to prison. The house with the white picket fence she so deserved. The peaceful life he promised to give her when he got out._

There was one dream that particularly ripped his heart out. The last time they met at the park. She looked so lost, afraid, scared, lonely, confused. And she was terrified. Jesus. She was fucking terrified. OF HIM! That he would hurt her. That he would kill her. For trying to protect the family that they created together.

What kind of man had he become that his wife was afraid that he would kill her for protecting her children. He knew without a doubt in that moment that he had failed her. Failed her as a man, her man. As a husband that she chose to stay with numerous times. If he could hit rewind and go back to that day in the park, when she finally revealed the secrets that she had been keeping, he should have told DA Patterson that the new deal was he would give up whatever she wanted, as long as he could take his family and go somewhere deep and peaceful. No question about it.

He'd go back even further than that if such a thing existed. He'd have gone with her when she went to medical school. He wasn't sure what he would've done, but as long as he had her, her love, her support, her absolute faith in him that he could make it, he would've been able to.

He hadn't seen his boys since that day. He hadn't been able to arrange the funeral or burial of his wife.

His mom had come to visit him of course. _She held her hand up to the window as she looked at him, "Oh baby," she said sympathetically, "Don't worry about anything. I'm taking care of the boys and have planned to have her remains cremated."_

_"Her remains?" he spit out, his downcast eyes snapping to her, "She is my GODDAMN WIFE, MOTHER!"_

_"You mean she was," Gemma stuttered as she spoke, "She's dead, Jackson."_

_"Because someone came into OUR GODDAMN HOUSE AND MURDERED HER!"_

_"TELLER!" a guard yelled at him, "Calm down!"_

_"Fuck that!" he spit out as he slammed his hand against the window, glaring at his mother, "She will have a proper memorial!"_

_"Jackson!" she wailed as she watched in horror as he was hauled away by the guards._

During his time he had in solitary after his visit with his mother, he began to actually think about the crime itself. Think outlaw he is. How he would do things. As he had killed the prison guard who helped orchestrate Opie's murder. Jax did it up close and personal. Just like his beloved wife had been murdered. Then he thought about the prison guard's wife, who Tig shot in the head. She was 'collateral damage' as Sherriff Roosevelt had been.

A chilling new realization came over him: Someone close to him murdered his wife. Someone who knew his house. Was in the house before Tara had gotten home. Someone who wouldn't be afraid of a fight or a struggle.

SOASOASOASOASOA

As promised, Jax was released a mere few days after his arrest.

"Mr. Teller!" DA Patterson called to him as he strolled to his awaiting bike next to Chibs, Happy and Bobby.

He turned around to look at her.

"Remember the man your wife would want you to be," she smiled knowingly.

"I'll never forget again, DA," Jax promised, a small devilish smirk crossed his face when he turned to straddle his bike.

"Where to Jackie?" Chibs asked as he started his bike.

"I'm going to see my sons, talk to them about mommy, then say goodbye to my wife properly, then I'm going to find the motherfucker who murdered my wife in cold blood," he said as he drove off.

SOASOASOASOASOA

He spoke to some of the neighbors that afternoon, many of the newer residents promising and pleading with him that they had told the police everything that they saw, heard and knew already.

He spoke to the one neighbors, Mrs. Brown, that he knew saw everything in the neighborhood. Jax saw her all times of day, but mostly saw her late at night or early in the morning. He and Tara spoke to her and helped her with things. Tara helped her medically when she could. Jax and the club helped her around the house. She told him that before she heard a gunshot come from his house, she saw the old police chief's truck outside his house, but not the chief himself. She saw 'Your mother' Gemma go inside. Then she saw the Sheriff's car pull up, Tara get out of the car and go inside and the sheriff stayed in the car. After about 15 to 20 minutes, one of the Club members showed up, spoke to the sheriff briefly, then they both looked to the house like they heard something. The sheriff went in, followed by the 'young man with the bolts on his head'. Ten minutes later, 'your mother and the young man left by themselves. About an hour later, you came home.'

"Mrs. Brown, did you tell the police any of this?" Jax asked as calmly as he could. His blood was boiling, his anger about to explode.

"They never asked me," Mrs. Brown took his hand, patting it with both hers, "I'm sorry for your loss Jackson. I know you loved Tara. She was good for you. Much better than that first woman you were with," she wrinkled her nose in distaste.

"Thank you, ma'am," Jax replied kindly and honestly, "did you know Tara was the first and only woman I've ever loved?" He smiled sadly at the thought, "Since I was sixteen."

"That kind of love is a rare thing," she spoke softly to him, her warm eyes looking at him, "you take care of those precious boys of yours now, son."

Wiping back some stray tears, Jax nodded his head in agreement, "I will."

SOASOASOASOASOA

She came back to this God awful toxic town, with its whores and violence, to be with him again. She saved his son, no THEIR son, after his junkie ex-wife tried to kill him just to get fucking high. She loved him enough, that after he cheated on, her while she was carrying his child, to stay with him while he served a prison stint of a year.

"Remember what you said to me about Clay when we found out he was the one who hurt you?" Jax spoke quietly to the image that he held in his head: she was laying on top of him naked. His arm was slung low on her back, across the crow that told other Club members that she was his.

He smiled to himself when he heard her beautiful voice reply, 'Yeah baby.' She wasn't here or real but he could still hear her, something their children would probably never remember. The sound of her beautiful voice.

"Patterson reminded me to be the man you'd want me to be. I guess she didn't realize you could have one hell of a mean streak when you wanted," he spoke to her. In his mind she was stroking him firm and hard.

'You know who did this to me, to us,' she whispered kissing up the side of his neck.

"Yeah," he rasped out, "Can we stop talking now?" he asked before he imagined himself thrusting up into her, "Fuck baby. I'm going to miss you so much. Damn I already do," he sobbed as he imagined her feathering her fingers and lips softly over his face and beard, her hands tugging on his hair.

'You've never had problems getting laid Teller,' he could hear her joke, her hips rotating faster.

"We were never just sex, babe," he gasped out, "You're the 'love of my life' as they say."

'I love you, baby,' the phrase he adored the most passing her lips, 'Take care of business, then take our boys and get the hell out of this town.'

"I will, babe, I promise," he imagined kissing her with everything he had.

When he opened his eyes hours later, he reached for his phone.

"Hey mom," he pretended to care, "Could you find Juice and meet me? I wanted to go over some things…"

Jackson Teller would find out which one murdered his wife. Then he would still kill both of them.


End file.
